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The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or
The short hundredweight is commonly used in the US in the sale of
The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or quintal
The quintal or centner is a historical unit of mass in many countries which is usually defined as 100 base units, such as pounds or kilograms. It is a traditional unit of weight in France, Portugal, and Spain and their former colonies. It is com ...
, is a British imperial
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
and US customary unit of weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity.
Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as a scalar qua ...
or mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
. Its value differs between the US and British imperial systems. The two values are distinguished in American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
as the "short" and "long" hundredweight and in British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
as the "cental" and the "imperial hundredweight".
* The short hundredweight or cental of is used in the United States.
* The long or imperial hundredweight of 8 stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
or is defined in the imperial system
The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed th ...
.
Under both conventions, there are 20 hundredweight in a ton, producing a " short ton" of 2,000 pounds and a " long ton" of 2,240 pounds.
History
The hundredweight has had many values. In England in around 1300, different "hundreds" (''centum'' inMedieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functione ...
) were defined. The Weights and Measures Act 1835 formally established the present imperial hundredweight of 112 lb.
The United States and Canada came to use the term "hundredweight" to refer to a unit of 100 lb. This measure was specifically banned from British use—upon risk of being sued for fraud—by the Weights and Measures Act 1824
Weights and measures acts are acts of the British Parliament determining the regulation of weights and measures. It also refers to similar royal and parliamentary acts of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland and the medieval Welsh states. ...
but in 1879 the measure was legalised under the name "cental" in response to legislative pressure from British merchants importing wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
and tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
from the United States.
Use
The short hundredweight is commonly used in the US in the sale of livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...
and some cereal grains and oilseed
Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of fruits. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed oils, or f ...
s, paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
, and concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...
additives and on some commodities in futures exchanges.
A few decades ago, commodities weighed in terms of long hundredweight included cattle, cattle fodder, fertilizers, coal, some industrial chemicals, other industrial materials, and so on. However, since increasing metrication in most English-speaking countries, it is now less used. Church bell ringers use the unit commonly, although church bell manufacturers are increasingly moving over to the metric system.
Older blacksmiths' anvils are often stamped with a three-digit number indicating their total weight in hundredweight, quarter-hundredweight (28 lb, abbreviated qr), and pounds. Thus, an anvil stamped "1.1.8" will weigh 148 lb (112 lb + 28 lb + 8 lb).
The Imperial hundredweight is used as a measure of vehicle weight in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It was also previously used to indicate the maximum recommended carrying load of vans and trucks, such as the Ford Thames 5 and 7 cwt vans and the 8, 15, 30 and 60 cwt Canadian Military Pattern trucks.
Europe
In Europe outside British Isles, a centum or quintal was never defined in terms of British units. Instead, it was based on the kilogramme or former customary units. It is usually abbreviated q. It was 50 kg inGermany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, 48.95 kg in France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, 56 kg in Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, etc. The unit was phased out or metricized after the introduction of the metric system
The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Interna ...
in the 1790s, being occasionally retained in informal use up to mid-20th century.
See also
*Avoirdupois system
The avoirdupois system (; abbreviated avdp.) is a measurement system of Units of measurement, weights that uses pound (mass), pounds and ounces as units. It was first commonly used in the 13th century AD and was updated in 1959.
In 1959, by int ...
* The short and long hundred
The long hundred, also known as the great hundred or twelfty, is the number 120 (in base-10 Arabic numerals) that was referred to as "hundred" in Germanic languages prior to the 15th century, and is now known as one hundred twenty, or six score. ...
of 100 and 120, respectively
* Hundred, the medieval unit of measure
* Glossary of British ordnance terms#cwt
References
{{United States Customary Units Units of mass Imperial units Customary units of measurement in the United States